


For Cybertron

by MlleMusketeer



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Almost certainly missed something, Amnesia, Breeding, Dubious Consent, Forced Orgasm, Forced Pregnancy, Gang Rape, Gun Kink, Knotting, M/M, Mech Preg, Mechpreg, Miscarriage, Mnemosurgery, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Oral Sex, Oviposition, Rape, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Slave coding, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Torture, Transformer Sparklings, Whump, Xeno, flagrant abuse of the nudge gun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2019-12-25 16:26:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18265061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MlleMusketeer/pseuds/MlleMusketeer
Summary: Megatron sees the doom of all Cybertronians creeping upon them; a divided, dwindling species, surrounded by enemies. To cure that division, he surrenders himself to the Autobots to attain a peace available no other way. To remedy their dwindling numbers, he accepts a modification to his newest body.But Shockwave had his own plans for Megatron's role in Cybertron's recovery, and Megatron finds himself paying a higher price for Cybertron's future than he ever imagined possible. Now, Drift and Ratchet must race against time to save their dearest enemy... before Megatron, and the hope he represents, are lost forever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HEED THE FUCKING WARNINGS.
> 
> I mean each and every single one of them.

It starts as a simple decision.

            “You are sure this will work, Shockwave?” Megatron runs a battered finger over the diagram in his hands. Shockwave has already designed it to be appealing to him. Minimally intrusive when quiescent. Efficient while in use. The need for CNA and spark-wavelengths from another mech is the one flaw he was unable to design out. Variation, he says, is vital in a population, especially one as limited as Cybertronians now.

            Megatron has been blown up, dismembered, maimed, shredded, in the service of Cybertron’s future.

            He tells himself intimacy, when it comes to it, won’t be so bad.

            “I am sure, Lord Megatron,” says Shockwave.

            “Then you have my permission to include it in my next body.” He just hopes planning one body into the future will give Shockwave enough time. Optimus has been practicing; he knows Megatron too well. He knows this new body too far. On one hand, Megatron welcomes the challenge. On the other, it’s made his life more difficult.

            But Shockwave is good at what he does. Megatron trusts the quality of Shockwave’s work, if nothing else.

            And they need this solution.

            He’s laid his body on the line in more painful ways than he can remember.

            Intimacy will be the least of it.

            Even if it makes the back of his neck prickle with unease.

 

* * *

 

            When he receives the new body, he’s forgotten about the new systems. Any attention he might pay to them has been subsumed by the difficulties of dealing with a black hole as a power source.

            And by another agonizing defeat.

 

* * *

 

            Shockwave had another plan this whole time, a plan that makes even Megatron uneasy with its ruthlessness.

            Megatron knows the extreme danger of the organics bearing down on them. He knows what he’s provoked them to. That’s why he was willing to accept the modifications that would allow him—with the assistance of another mechanism—to create and incubate new sparks. That’s why he’s willing to try and negotiate a new peace, even if it means submitting to the humiliation of a public trial. However, what he now knows as Shockwave’s primary plan—the effective death of all the universe around them—is so brutal as to be totally useless.

            Funnily enough, it works in his favor. He pretends to mourn a mech he barely knew. He pretends a redemption arc and the acceptance of the Autobot brand. Knowing what it’s in service of, what he must do, means it barely disgusts him.

            Optimus falls for it.

            Not as completely as Megatron would have hoped.

            Hence his demand for a trial.

            It makes his new systems all the more important. He _cannot_ die. They need him to stop the tide he sees coming. The forces with the single purpose of the elimination of mechanical life.

            Clearer-processored, Megatron feels faintly regretful. Like a hero of old, his fight against the threat he feared ensures its very existence. They would not be coming in such an organized form if he had not given them something to fear. But there’s nothing to be gained in that regret, and he sets it aside in favor of a solution.

            They will not execute him with a second spark within him.

            So when Optimus looks at him, Megatron reaches up to catch his helm and kisses the ridge of his mask, which is easier than after the mask slides aside and Optimus is kissing him back, and there is an alien glossa in his mouth, the oral lubricants that taste just the same as his own, only there is too much of them. And that is easier than what comes after.

            It is a new form of fighting, he tells himself, it’s physical contact, how is it so different, he’s put his body on the line again and again for the Decepticons and _this is no different_.

            The pleasure is a loss of control and he hates it.

            His frame is shuddering in reaction he cannot govern, it is doing things and reacting in ways he cannot predict, is not familiar with, and he hates it.

            Pain he understands, and pain he misses, but Optimus is too fragging Autobot and there is no pain to ground himself with, and _he hates it_.

            Optimus pumps into him, slow and smooth and loving, as if this is an act of worship, and Megatron hates it. Optimus coos praise into his audials, and Megatron hates that most because all of it makes him feel like an object, a pet. Something that needs reassurance.

            But he can lie with every inch of his frame, and, as it turns out, every flare of his spark too, because Optimus suspects nothing. Not even when Megatron forces his own sparkchamber open and presses himself to Optimus, deliberately pushing his body’s foolish need to the forefront of himself, the shameful part of himself that fantasized about submission and the loss of responsibility for his indulgent desires. Even acknowledging that, at this point, is sickening.

            But he will do what is necessary.

            _This is hardly new_ , he tells himself sternly, and it works, and Optimus suspects nothing.

            “I’m sorry we cannot do this again,” Optimus tells him softly, as they clean up, and Megatron allows himself to be caressed and kissed again, kisses back because that is what’s expected. “But if you go through with this, there are rules. They’ll want me to sit in judgement on you.”

            Optimus might be begging him not to go through with this.

            Megatron wants to laugh. He’s already gone through with the most daunting part; the trial will be nothing to this.

            Instead, he gives Optimus a small sad smile, and suffers the other mech to buff the paint transfers from the insides of his thighs, no matter how little he wants the touch, because the illusion _must_ be perfect. “This is how it has to be.”

            If this works, he will find someone else to accept the modification. Someone for whom this isn’t an ordeal.

            For now, there is still the next hour to be survived. Then the welcome isolation of the prison cell, no matter how he hates the confinement. How he hates the smell still clinging to him.

            He hopes it worked. He is not looking forward to doing that again.

            Optimus will be delighted if it does work. Optimus will want to do it again. At that point, he has a plan. He’ll tell Optimus the physical process is too onerous, that if he wants to repopulate the damn planet, he’ll get a modification himself. He knows Optimus; it will only make the other mech happier. If it works, he’ll be able to step back. There are certainly other mecha who will find the…physical component of the inducement of sparking enjoyable. Starscream may yet single-handedly save them all, and if he fails, Tarn’s enough of a hedonist to pick up the slack.

            He’s sneering to himself in his cell. He doesn’t bother to hide it.

            Who knows what the Autobots will think of it, but they’re so fond of organics that none of them should be terribly exercised by the idea of supporting a parasitic spark for a few months.

            He spends a moment speculating about Starscream’s probable reaction, then slips himself into recharge.


	2. Chapter 2

Optimus leaves.

            Optimus takes the mnemosurgeon with him.

            Megatron curls around himself and barely hears Rodimus’ taunts. His terror is twofold. The violation, in and of itself. His body and spark, he’s already laid both on the line, they don’t matter—but his brain, the one part of himself he finds reliable, he cannot. He _will not_.

            And they’ll find out about his plan.

            He cannot imagine them doing anything good with that.

            Before this, he might have trusted Optimus to be honorable, to let him carry the spark to separation in peace. To investigate the use of the equipment. To be reasonable, and decent about it, because _isn’t that what Prime stands for? Isn’t that what he’s mocked Prime for for eons?_

            Well, he’s been wrong, and a nightmarish future unrolls in his mind, being used as little more than an incubator.

            Optimus cannot know, not unless there is no other alternative. Not unless it’s that or death because he still has a duty to do.

            Megatron trembles.

            He hides his face in his hands.

            The plan is still viable, but the future it promises terrifies him. He was a fool to believe that Autobots would ever respect his bodily autonomy. He is a fool to have even considered the overtures of peace.

            Some part of him wants to laugh at Rodimus threatening him with death, as if that weren’t the easiest of the paths before him. Even fleeing back to the Decepticons presents more challenges. Separation of the second spark, dealing with Optimus, selecting—if necessary, if it fails—a second partner.

            Still, he will do it. He will do anything he must in order to preserve Cybertron. That, after all, is his first loyalty. Watching the growing power of organics in the universe has thrown into sharp relief his success in breaking the Functionists, if nothing else—he still hates the Autobots, but he will not see Cybertronians extinct in order to gratify that hatred. An end to the war, even if on the surface it appears he’s surrendered, is acceptable in exchange for the unification of their species.

            Maybe the more times he tells himself this, the more he will find anything but seething humiliation in it.

 

* * *

 

            The trial is worse than he expected.

            Of course Optimus found one more way to hurt him. It _is_ worse than the interface, because that was only him. He’s told himself that sacrificing the Decepticons for Cybertron is something he must do, but that doesn’t stop him from stepping back in his mind from what he’s saying, what he’s doing, hearing Optimus’s words coming from his mouth as if he’s on the other side of the cameras hovering around him, watching Starscream’s mouth twist in something that’s either disgust or triumph. His hands are steady in the cuffs as they rest on the edge of the dock. Why wouldn’t they be? Everything that is _him_ is three steps back, watching. There are no emotions.

            There are no emotions until later. Much later, as Optimus releases him from the cuffs and praises him, and the shame of everything sweeps over him, enough for one bitter comment, and then an utter collapse as he’s left alone.

            It’s gone exactly to plan and he’s weaker than he ever imagined because he can’t bear it. The shame, the anger, the humiliation—they all _burn_.

            But he still rises and accompanies Ultra Magnus when so commanded. He might as well follow these commands now, play the part of the willing prisoner. It’s a part, he reminds himself, a part. It’s not the right time to reveal himself to his Decepticons. They’re still his and if he knows them they’ll ignore him and that is the best he could hope from them, even if he has abandoned them for this.

            _To be an Autobot’s incubator?_ says a sneering voice within him.

            He pushes it aside, walls it away with the memory of organic ships ranked in their millions. This is for Cybertron.

            At least, once he’s aboard the Lost Light, it’s certainly over. He sits hunched on the recharge slab, horribly alone with his own thoughts, with the phantom sensations his brain insists on creating playing around his abdomen. The equipment should not be intrusive. It is imaginary. But how can he tell that to the faint squirming under his spark, the sensation of movement in the space above his valve?

            He plugs himself in. Lies curled on his side. Waits for recharge and hates every moment of this with a vitriol he does not even remember in the mines.

            It’s what must be done.

            There was no instruction manual that came with this, so the pain comes as a surprise. A month into their journey, in this absolute madhouse of a ship—he’s almost used to the discomfort of the Fool’s Energon, he’s almost used to the hatred. But the pain comes as a surprise.

            The first seizes him on the bridge. He has to clutch at the arm of the captain’s chair to stay upright, and a small, harsh gasp escapes him. He guesses its cause immediately, stammers something to the effect of Ultra Magnus having the bridge, and staggers to the medbay, pausing at intervals to fight the pain and the pull of gravity.

            He ignores the curious looks.

            “What the frag is wrong with you?” is how Ratchet greets him. He looks up at the mech, which is weird. He should be looking down at Ratchet. It’s then he realizes he’s slumped to the floor. He tries to push himself up but his arms go out from under him and another cramp wracks him, bending him in half with a grunt.

            “Seriously,” says Ratchet, already scanning him. “I’ve seen you _torn in half_ and you didn’t make such a fuss.”

            Is that concern in the gruff voice? Megatron doesn’t let himself believe it. He’s among enemies, in agony, indignity…

            Everything hurts. _Everything._ What the frag did Shockwave _do?_

            “I don’t know, but I’m going to revive him and reformat him into a taxi,” says Ratchet. “We’re going to be putting you on a gurney now. You’re too big for me to move alone.”

            We’re? Megatron is distracted by another pain. This goes on longer, wipes his mind of anything _but_ the pain. When he comes back to himself, he’s flat on his back and all the medical staff is clustered around him, wide-opticked.

            “You seem to know what this is,” Ratchet says. “How about you tell me what this is?”

            “You only,” grits Megatron.

            “Stop being so suspicious,” snaps Ratchet.

            “You, only,” says Megatron, only the end of it turns into a groan.

            “Fine,” says Ratchet. “Aid, Lotty, out.” He bends down, doing something on a tray near Megatron’s head. Megatron should be panicking about that. He’s not. The world is simple now. There’s the pain, and the space between the pain, and he feels like he’s floating. His insistence on privacy feels strange, a thing of rote habit. It’s important, but there’s no emotion connected to it.

            His arm is lifted. He manages to tilt his head so he can watch what Ratchet is doing to it with disinterest. Ratchet slips a chip under his armor. He feels it slot into a port. A few moments while it uploads and then easily half the pain leaves him.

            He’s no less dreamy. He smiles up at Ratchet. “Thank you,” he says.

            “Okay, so that’s creepy,” says Ratchet. “Now. Megatron, what’s wrong with you?”

            “Shockwave was inspired by organic reproduction,” says Megatron. Ratchet stiffens. It makes Megatron smile more. “For my new body, I requested he attempt to implement it. We’re dying. It’s—” another pain overtakes him, but compared to the others it’s a pang at most, and he rides it out with optics closed and dentae clenched, “it’s my fault.”

            Ratchet scans him, and scans him again, and looks like he can’t believe his own systems. “And how exactly does this version of reproduction work?”

            Megatron gasps with the next one. They’re getting more frequent, worse. He can feel cabling and internal systems ripple and clench and contract with massive force. The chip’s just dulled his neural inputs, so it’s not as agonizing.

            “Same as organics,” he says. “Interface.”

            “I’m not even sure I know where to start with how fragging stupid you’ve been,” says Ratchet. “But for now, let’s focus on what’s important. What do you think is happening?”

            “I’m assuming the protoform is coming out,” says Megatron, and musters up enough wherewithal to glare at Ratchet.

            Ratchet glances at his scanner, then back at Megatron. “Well, I hope you’re right,” he says. “I don’t have a damned idea because you’re medically unique.”

            The inhibitor chip is doing less than it was only a few seconds ago. Megatron can’t think of an answer for that because he’s too focused on the agony. He lies and shivers and wishes it would end, in more pain than he can remember even his most grievous wounds causing. There’s a special horror to looking down at his unmarred frame, yet still feeling it trying to rip itself into pieces. 

            Ratchet touches his shoulder. His hand feels icy against Megatron’s frame. “Megatron? Megatron. Optics on me, please.” Ratchet sounds worried. “Can you open your optics? Just focus here.”

            He tries. The effort to keep his optics open is appalling and hardly worth it, but he tries. The pain surges again and he whimpers.

            “The medical overrides aren’t working,” Ratchet says, and Megatron wonders for a moment what Ratchet expects him to do about this. “I can’t offline enough of his pain sensors. I’ve offlined a lot of them and he’s still in agony. This isn’t right. I don’t think even Shockwave would have done this so badly.”

            There’s someone else in the room, Megatron supposes. He should be angry. There are more immediate problems. A pressure builds in his abdomen and it won’t subside. It doesn’t register as pain, not really, but somehow it’s worse. He realizes he’s writhing, constantly moving in the hopes that it’ll give his neural network something else to concentrate on. That it’ll be better than stopping and staying still. He hears himself groan and maybe that release of atmosphere, the focus of making that noise, _maybe_ it makes things a little better.

            “It’s going to be okay,” says Ratchet above him. His voice is kind. He’s never thought of Ratchet as particularly kind before. “Megatron, it’s going to be okay.”

            He wants to believe Ratchet, which should be laughable for reasons he can’t quite recall, but instead he finds it comforting. Someone pulls his legs apart. He grunts in protest.

            “We think Shockwave designed the system so that the protoform can come out your valve,” says Ratchet. “I’m going to need you to open your interface array, all right?”

            That snags something in his brain. Megatron cooperates, though it takes him a long, long time to find the right commands. Now, he realizes there’s something dripping from him.

            “Aid, let’s get a line into him,” says Ratchet. He feels a sting in a line in his neck. “Just a precaution,” Ratchet says. “But I don’t like how he looks.”

            Too bad for him, Megatron thinks, and then convulses. It’s incredibly unpleasant. His limbs move without his permission He can feel the strain, the pain, but there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He’s connected to his frame by only a weak tether, and then, in the back of his brain, comes a mounting urge to push. He obeys it. Something within him grinds and tears.

            “Megatron,” says Ratchet, and there’s fear in his voice, but Megatron is now focused on what he’s doing. Another push, and he hears his voice rise in a guttural snarl that comes close to a scream. Another. Air is hard to draw into his vents. He gasps, strains. Something seems to come loose. He feels it when it shoves the apex of his valve open, when it seems to lodge. Desperate, he pushes again, hard, with another one of those embarrassing cries. It’s work. Painful. Exhausting. Nothing new, he tells himself. Again. Again. Again. He loses track of the agains.

            Finally it moves, it slips into his valve and down. Ratchet is talking to him and it doesn’t matter. He’s too tired. He just has to finish this.

            At last it comes out of him, sticky and gelatinous and hot. “Is it alive?” he gasps. He’s close to collapse. He can’t move. Ratchet is looking down between his legs, face carefully still.

            “No,” Ratchet says. Megatron wants to curse, but the words escape him. He’s too tired. There’s still wetness seeping from him. He makes an incoherent pained noise and clenches a fist that quickly melts into a limp open hand.

            His optics close. He doesn’t want to sleep.

            “Get him cleaned up,” says Ratchet above him. “Megatron, it’s all right. Rest. It will wait until you wake.”

            Megatron tells himself he’s not obeying. That his frame would have done this anyway. He falls into the welcome darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

He wakes, and stares at the ceiling above him, trying to place it. Right. Medical bay. He’s got sensors all over him; there’s a soft beeping to his side, hums and whirrs.

            Bits of the past return. Pain and confusion and a humiliating memory of his horrible passive acceptance of it all. He shakes his head, hard.

            “Hey,” says a voice next to him. Deadlock. He looks for his former lieutenant and feels himself smile.

            “Ratchet thought it might be a good idea to have someone you knew here,” says Deadlock—Drift. He looks uncomfortable, but Megatron is incredibly glad to see him. Even after his defection, he _trusts_ Drift.

            “Yes,” he grates. Then the anger and the despair return and he looks up at the ceiling. “I take it Shockwave’s invention failed.”

            “Ratchet says it was the impurities in the Fools’ Energon that did it,” says Drift.

            Megatron turns back to look up at the ceiling. “So it all must be done again,” he murmurs. It come gradually to him that he’s still in pain, the pain of strained cables and lines and internals, and an utterly unfamiliar pain between his legs. Nothing like what Optimus left him with, vicious, hot, hard to ignore. He resists the desire to stir uncomfortably. He’s not happy with even Drift realizing his damages.

            “Ratchet will give you more information,” says Drift, still reluctant. Megatron turns his helm to look up at the mech. He’s not wearing his Autobot brand. That’s interesting. He focuses on that instead of the pain.

            “Why are you here?” asks Drift after a time, and the look he bends on Megatron is sharp and uncomfortable.

            Megatron huffs out a vent. There are many things he could say. The truth, which he supposes he might have given Deadlock upon a time. Repentance. An admission of loss. An enigmatic smile, a _don’t question me._ There are so many things. Instead he says, “You know why.”

            “I don’t,” says Drift. He sits slouched, arms folded. “I don’t. Because of all the things you are, you’re not this. You’re not…diminished. Purposeless.” The look he gives Megatron is sullen. “And you don’t leave us like this.”

            _Us?_ The word snags in his mind, and he glances at Drift’s chestplate, where an Autobrand should be.

            “Because even if I left,” says Drift, “even for the traitors, you were still _ours._ We were still _yours_. Even if we were only to kill each other. Even if that was our sole unfinished business. You could kill us, but you would never abandon us.” He looks back at Megatron, the corner of his mouth pulling down. “Until now. So why are you here?”

            Megatron meets his gaze steadily. “Did you not go looking for redemption?”

            Drift lets out a vicious noise, something between disgust and laughter. “I did. And I settled on a way to live with myself. _You_ don’t _settle_.”

            There’s guilt somewhere deep in his mind, and he feels himself sag heavily against the medical berth. He’s exhausted.

            “You’re beyond the point of redemption,” Drift tells him harshly. “We both are. And we both knew it when we passed that point. We both _chose_ it, that’s why it’s past redemption. So why the frag are you here? What are you playing at?”

            Megatron remains silent. He wants to meet Drift’s accusation with the truth— _this is something bigger, this must be done,_ trust _me, Drift, I have not abandoned_ any _of you—_ but he will not expose himself in such a way for petty satisfaction alone.

            “Or is this another plot,” says Drift, and looks away with a soft noise of disgust. “Of course you won’t say anything. As usual, we’re all pawns in a larger game.”

            _And I am too,_ he wants to say, brought home by the pain from his internals, the deep dread and disgust of what he must do. The mere memory of Optimus’s hands on him is viscerally upsetting. He’ll need to choose someone else to do it. There are options on this ship and they make him feel sick, each and every one. But it must be done.

            He’s faced worse disgust than Drift’s disapproval.

            “And Ratchet’s keeping your secrets too,” says Drift, and now there’s real anger in his voice. “He won’t tell me what you’ve done to yourself to be here. So whatever you’re planning—leave him out of it.”

            “I will,” says Megatron, and means it. It prompts a look of surprise from Drift. He meets it with a smile that is a ghost of his usual and for an instant pity crosses Drift’s face.

            That’s worse than any other humiliation.

            Ratchet comes in then and looks from one to the other. “I take it you had things to work out.”

            Megatron and Drift look back at him blankly, united in this at least.

            “Drift,” says Ratchet, and jerks his head at the door. Drift rises. Megatron realizes he was fully armed, and feels complimented.

            Drift hesitates for a moment, then reaches out and puts a hand on Ratchet’s shoulder and looks back at Megatron, pointed. _This one’s mine,_ that look says.

            “ _Drift._ ” Ratchet hasn’t missed the meaning of that either, and gives Drift a firm shove toward the door with a hand. Drift goes, reluctant.

            “How are you feeling?”

            “I’ve had worse,” says Megatron, and it doesn’t ring true. It’s quiet, almost defeated. He hurts, is how he’s feeling. He hurts in ways he didn’t think he could, and he’s so, so tired.

            Ratchet stares at him a time, then pulls up Drift's chair and sits down next to him. "We don't have a lot of words for this in our language," he says bluntly. "I'm using human terms because they're the closest equivalents; you know they reproduce sexually and internally gestate young. And they're what I'm familiar with. So if you've got any anti-human sentiment, now's the time to get over yourself."

            Megatron heaves a sigh. "Go on, doctor."

            "You miscarried. It means the newspark died and your gestational systems ejected it. It looks like it was fairly developed. I tested its metals and sparkchamber; it seems like the impurities in the Fools' Energon concentrated and killed it. It wasn't a flaw in the equipment. The equipment, in theory, works perfectly well."

            Megatron closes his optics.

            "I'm taking you off the Fools' Energon," says Ratchet bluntly. "Its effects were purely psychological anyway. There's no reason for you to be drinking that now."

            "Optimus fooled me?" says Megatron, and feels something too ugly to be true amusement rise in him.

            "Optimus fooled you," says Ratchet, "and I enabled it. I shouldn't have."

            They sit there a few moments longer, and then Ratchet adds, "Why?"

            "Because we're dying," said Megatron. "No more hot spots, and so many of us dead in our war. My war. If I could find a way to help us repopulate, maybe I might one day merit this badge." He touches the Autobot brand on his chest, though most of that speech is counterfeited. He doesn't want to be an Autobot.

            "You'll have a long way to go for that," says Ratchet, but there's uncertainty in his voice.

            "No one knows that better than I, doctor," says Megatron. "Is the equipment still functional?"

            "It ejected the protoform before the infection could damage it," says Ratchet. "Everything's in working order."

            Megatron realizes he was wishing it wasn't in working order, so he could get rid of it. Be excused for not doing this over again. Not having to choose a partner on this ship of lunatics. And who could he choose?

            His mind shies away from that thought. Instead he says, “How long until I can be released?”

            “Another day. I want to make sure that your systems are still functioning correctly after the…miscarriage.” Ratchet sighs heavily and pulls up a chair, sits, looking at him. “You say this came from Shockwave. Why?”

            Megatron frowns at him.

            “And what is it?” says Ratchet. “I gather it lets you make new protoforms, in theory. And in practice, it tears your frame apart in a remarkably accurate imitation of organic childbirth going horrifically wrong.”

            Megatron is silent.

            “Oh come on,” snaps Ratchet. “You want to keep your secrets, keep them, but I might not be here next time it goes wrong. Let's start simple. You say that the organic requirement for a sexual partner for reproduction is also the case here?”

            Megatron looks away. "Yes," he says after a hesitation.

            "Who was the other partner?"

            "Not your business," says Megatron.

            "Another Decepticon? Or was that after you were taken into custody?"

            Megatron is silent.

            "If it was after you were taken into custody, it was an abuse of your rights as a prisoner," said Ratchet. "I'd want to know the name of the other mech."

            Megatron snorts. "Even if it was—even if I'd been fully unwilling, which I was not," and it tastes like a lie, even though it isn't, he was the one to initiate, he was the one to submit, to urge Optimus on, to hide his true disgust from Optimus, "do you really mean to tell me that any Autobot would take an allegation from me seriously? Me? I'd be accused of manipulating one of them, most likely. It would be more evidence of my untrustworthiness. Not less. Not a reason for sympathy."

            Ratchet's expression, when Megatron looks up at him, is sad. He expected anger.

            "We're better than that," he says. "Megatron, whatever your experiences, we're better than that now. If you need to tell me anything, I will make sure you're safe. That no one touches you without permission."

            "A sentiment I appreciate, though I doubt its efficacy in practice," says Megatron, and will discuss no more of the matter.

* * *

 

He recovers faster than he expected to, finds himself walking about the ship as if nothing's happened. Things pull, deep in him, still ache. The metals are bruised, says Ratchet, and Megatron finds himself alarmed and bemused. Four million years of war and he didn't know that metals could bruise.

            It's a figure of speech, Ratchet retorts. Just give it time to heal.

            Megatron will have no trouble with that. After just a few more days, he's decided he'll have no luck here. There's not a spark aboard he'd care to interface with, and he assumes it'd be the case if he overcomes his distaste for the act itself. They're all juvenile. They're all thoughtlessly cruel. His door is scrawled with hatred.

            It isn't as if he hasn't earned that, but he doubts it would make anyone inclined to interface with their captors, unless they were Whirl. Whirl is strange enough Megatron wouldn't put it past him.

            Three days out of medbay and he arrives on the bridge to a grim-looking Magnus. Grimmer than usual, which puts him on edge.

            “The medbay silent alarms malfunctioned last night,” says Magnus as Megatron steps onto the bridge.

            He doesn’t like the sound of that. “Do we know what was taken?”

            “Nothing, as far as we can tell,” says Magnus. “The computers all seem secure. Everything’s in its proper place. I wouldn’t be concerned. Except for the malfunction—and it was a long one. Over an hour.”

            “Are they sure about the security of the crew’s medical files?” asks Megatron.

            “It was the first thing Ratchet checked. I intend to go down and check the computers myself.”

            Megatron wants to join him to be sure but doesn’t. He doesn’t want to indicate that he’s particularly worried about the medical files. “Thank you, Ultra Magnus. Please tell me what you find.”

            “I shall. You have the bridge, Captain.”

            Megatron _appreciates_ Magnus. The mech is polite and professional and has betrayed not one iota of curiosity about his illness. He’s deeply glad of it.

            Magnus is the only mechanism on this ship that Megatron could imagine choosing as a partner, and that’s in part because he knows Magnus would be utterly horrified at the idea. He’d see it as taking advantage of a prisoner. He wouldn’t do it. And Megatron is glad of that. There’s nothing to be done just now. A reprieve. He’s weak and glad of that.

            For now, he can concentrate on his overarching goal; a unified Cybertron, a defense against the Galactic Council and the Black Block Consortia. It feels clean and simple, and he throws himself into that work, into that planning, with enthusiasm.

            Mentally, he sets aside the weight in his abdomen where the additional systems sit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *points to the warnings with a significant stare*

            It is deep into the ship's night, two days later, when Megatron wakes to someone jamming a shock prod into his abdomen. He gasps with the pain, and finds that he's shackled to his recharge slab. That there's someone straddling him, legs to either side of his waist, a hand on a shoulder. A faceplate next to his audial.

            His attacker leans close, and says something. A series of phrases. And then, "Open your panel," and to his horror his valve panel moves aside. The mech over him chuckles softly.

            "Good," and there's the nuzzle of a gun against his helm and he knows no more.

 

* * *

 

            Megatron wakes. He can’t move and his optics won’t online. He hisses between his dentae. He can’t hear it. His audials are offline too.

            A hand clamps over his mouth.

            A line jacks into a wrist port. His wrists are above his head, secured there. He wonders how they found anything on the recharge slab to secure them to; he checked there was nothing, he didn’t want to risk it on this ship full of enemies. His responses are slow and sluggish, and he should be able to break them and he can’t.

            Text renders into his processor.

            _First of all, no one’s coming for you._

Then, _We won’t kill you. Which is more than you deserve. But struggle, and we’ll make this hurt._

            We’ll. It’s a clue. His mind seizes on that. He’ll have to keep that in mind. There’s more than one of them attacking him.

            He wonders if it’s a two-way connection, but an experimental ping finds the other mech’s firewalls are up—Autobot Spec-Ops grade no less, and he doesn’t have the skill to hack them.

            That was his last hope of escape. He’s still exhausted. This nonsense body is not obedient to his commands at the best of times, and now is certainly not that.

            A hand gropes between his legs. It hurts.

            He’ll have to survive this. He’ll have to live through it, exist through it, but what Cybertron needs is him. No matter whether they change their minds—and if they know what he suspects they know, they have no intention of killing him. Because they can’t get newsparks off of his spark and kill him immediately. The sientio metallico needs to form, collect, and settle.

            And they plan to hide their crime by blinding and deafening him.

            _Yes, your medical files are compromised,_ his attacker sends. _Now open up. Unless you want everyone to know exactly what you’re good for._

They have worked hard to give him no choice. But he knows better than to be so easily cowed; he doubts this mech will keep his secret. He keeps his panels closed and glares blindly upward.

            They pry them off. But he expected the pain, and can brace himself. Fingers prod into him, are withdrawn. A packet comes down the hardline. His audials come back online.

            “Not like you’re gonna remember any of this,” the attacker says. “I want you to _hear_ yourself.”

            Megatron doesn’t respond. His vents hitch slightly when the fingers return, rough and painful, even if they’re coated with lubricant. They force their way inside him, moving in brutal, rough strokes. He’s a little surprised the attacker is showing this much consideration, but perhaps making this as thorough a parody of consent as possible is intended to make it more humiliating. Or, most likely, the attacker doesn’t want to damage him this early in the process.

            He feels a body lower over his, feels vents wash over him, short and fast with excitement. A moving arm knocks into him; the attacker is stroking himself, readying himself. He forces himself to vent, slow and even, and smile as mockingly as he would at any torturer, because that’s what this mech is.

            His smirk turns into a pained rictus as the attacker forces himself into his valve. Megatron can feel the calipers spasming open, and the other mech’s spike feels improbably big. He feels like he’s being internally disarranged, like the vents are being forced out of his frame. Surely that is all of it. Surely—but there is still more. He can feel the head of it nudge something deep inside him and it hurts.

            The attacker makes a satisfied noise. “So tight,” he says. “I can feel how unwilling you are. I can feel you fighting me. It’s slagging hot. I guess you never spread ‘em for one of your loyal Decepticons, huh? Who’d have thought you were so uptight. Maybe you just needed a good frag, huh? Someone should have pinned you down in the mines, shown you what you’re actually good for, and we’d still have a fragging planet.” His hips hitch forward, then push in again, tiny aggravating motions that each bring another stab of pain. “Can’t see why Optimus didn’t keep you. That must have been really good for him. This—,” a moan, “you like this—frag. Talk about a victory. He could have chained you to his berth and no one would have cared. Bred you like an organic. Frag. So ironic.”

            The movements stop. Megatron keeps himself still, hating the feeling of being full, hating the mech above him with a force that defies his determination _not to care_ that this is happening, not to show them that they got to him, that he feels angry and violated. He wants them to think that _only_ messing with his head will do that…

            But it’s not true.

            “So ironic,” says the attacker, and Megatron wonders if the mech will ever _shut up_. Then he withdraws, leaving Megatron to gasp with relief, and shoves back in again. This time, Megatron’s unsuccessful in muffling a hiss of pain. “This isn’t going to be the last time we have you—and yeah, it’s an _us_ , you’re going to be here all night, a helpless fragtoy. This tight little valve isn’t going to stay tight. And who knows, maybe we’ll find a use for your mouth, too, that’s gotta be better than your attempts at poetry.”

            The words don’t matter. He tells himself that. He knows he’s lying to himself. The spike slams into him again, and again, the movements gaining speed and force, and he’s floating. Pain. Humiliation. A burning, helpless anger, and nothing to do but lie there and focus on the next vent, smother the next noise of pain. They’ve probably muted his vocalizer. Made it so all he can do is grunt or whimper. He doesn’t try to call for help; he’ll figure out who this is and kill them himself.

            His legs are moved, a painful wide splay. A finger presses on his anterior node. Optimus touched him there to bring him to completion; this mech presses down hard enough to bruise, to add another hot flare of pain to what he already feels. “You don’t like that, do you,” says the mech. “Primus, I feel you clenching, you want me out of you. So good. I think I’m going to be here every night. I’m glad they didn’t execute you. Taking you, filling you, watching you try not to scream—it’s so much better. Maybe when everyone else has had their turn, I’ll have you again. Either way, I’ll have so much fun watching. You’re having enough trouble with my spike, aren’t you. I can’t wait to see how bad they’re going to hurt you. Maybe two of us should frag you at the same time, would you really be able to keep quiet then?”

            He knows the voice, he’s trying to identify it. He feels the base of the spike swell, the movements halt, the unbearable pressure, and the mech gasps, moans as he knots and begins to fill him.

            The damned modifications wick away the transfluid as if they welcome it, while Megatron squirms in agony and disgust, trying, instinctively, to get away. He can’t. He can’t move, he can’t get the damned thing out. Someone’s prying at his chest plates, and his locks are broken and he can’t resist and soon he feels the cold air on his spark.

            He hears himself whimper, briefly, at the first rasp of the other spark against his. Then everything is agony like he’s never felt before, and even screaming is lost to him at the violation.

            It’s his spark. His spark. Not theirs, and yet they push into it as if it is their right, and even this part of him—this part that he has always set aside as weak, as too gentle to do the duty he must—it is him and they have _no right, get out—!_

            They don’t. They wait until he falters into shocked, stunned exhaustion, and then the finger is moving over his anterior node, a gentle slick touch, and his abused body wants to respond. It takes a long long time, but between the stimulation and the ache of the unwilling spark merge, his body bows up in a weak little climax, making them laugh with satisfaction and withdraw.

            He lies, shuddering with relief at only feeling aches, no new pains, and then the next hands touch him, turn him onto his front, twisting his arms cruelly. This mech says nothing, but the spike is indeed bigger, and Megatron grunts in pain as it’s forced into him.

            A medic will know what’s happened to him, surely, he thinks, as hands drag his hips backwards to meet the next rapist’s thrust. His spark is still exposed. He can’t cover it himself. Will they all want it? Will the rest of them be too intimidated to follow their leader’s example?

            He admits to himself that he’s afraid.

            The one on top of him moans, long and low, as he overloads. He doesn’t take his spark, but his fingers probe into Megatron’s chest, playing with the energies, likely relishing his pain.

            He doesn’t know how many there are. He can’t tell them apart, not even by their sparks. The first one takes him at least three times, he at least is distinctive, he has preferences, the hand over his mouth, the cruelties mocked up as praise. The way, the last time, he forces Megatron into an overload, laughing at him the while. Promising to return for more.

            And then—a reprieve. Moments when no one’s touching him. Megatron sags on the recharge slab, with the stink of interface strong everywhere he turns, his arms cruelly wrenched and his wrists aching and his spark wide open.

            He hears and feels someone sling a leg over him, feels them straddle him. Something presses against his forehead.

            “I said you wouldn’t remember,” says the mech, and then, “Bomp,” and Megatron knows no more.


	5. Chapter 5

Megatron wakes.

            Pain greets him. He lets out a soft groan and folds up around himself. Something is strained in his shoulder. His spark _aches_ , burns, the inside of his spark chamber feels sandpapered. The joints of his legs and hips twinge, and it takes two tries to gather them up under him and when he does the throbbing between his legs turns to a sharp stabbing agony that makes him gasp with its abruptness and violence.

            He forces himself through the motion with a frame that shakes, stands up, and feels something, slow and sticky, creep from his valve. He vents deeply, and the air around him is stale with the stink of interface, of lubricants and transfluid.

            A few moments later, he spots his panel, cast across the room. That explains some of the pain.

            He staggers to the washracks. Warm solvent. Something to do. Yes. He needs this.

            He needs to…

            It will wash away the evidence.

            He stops, leaning against the washracks door with an arm that hurts worse than his abused valve, and doesn’t know what to do.

            He refuses to parade through the ship with his valve on display. He refuses to acknowledge, to let _anyone_ who doesn’t know have an idea of what’s happened, that someone has caught him with his guard down, that he doesn’t remember—!

            He slides down so he sits on the floor.

            His mind grinds to a halt, and he doesn’t know what to do next. The shower was concrete. A goal he could work toward. Without it, he can’t think. He can’t decide. There are options. His mind won’t process them. It’s still and horrified and throughout all this he has yet to _feel_ anything. He just…he can’t remember what he needs to do.

            He remembers, slowly, what time his duty shift is. When he needs to go to the bridge and stop Rodimus from crashing them all into an asteroid or something similarly mad.

            He needs to. He needs to. He can’t figure out the first step to do it, though.

            He sits, and he vents, and at last his mind moves sluggishly.

            He has been raped. Spark and frame, most likely, and that means the experimental gestational equipment will have been activated. And unless he wants to go through the process of birthing the next protoform—a protoform from a cowardly, cruel parent, rather than someone he respects—he must get Ratchet, who will know how to halt the process.

            He does not have Ratchet’s personal comm. He will not risk calling the medical bay and having First Aid or Velocity pick up. He will not tell another about this.

            He does have Drift’s.

            And Drift, he can trust.

            Even after his defection.

            With something like this, he can trust Drift.

            He calls Drift.

            “Megatron?” The other mech’s voice is still suspicious, guarded. But Megatron knows him. Knows he can manage, “I have been attacked. In my quarters. Transporting myself to the medical bay will not be possible.”

            A quiet muttered explanation on Drift’s end, and then Megatron hears Ratchet swear, clear and eloquent. It makes him smile. It seems funnier than it should be. At the same time cleanser presses at the corners of his optics and he brutally represses both responses. He will not allow this to send him into hysterics.

            “We’re on our way,” says Ratchet’s voice. “Describe your injuries, Megatron. I need to know if I need special equipment.”

            “I believe standard equipment will be sufficient for most of the injuries,” says Megatron, and it surprises him how easily he adds, “However, you will need to include the materials to obtain evidence of a sexual assault.”

            Putting it clinically didn't help. It's uncomfortable to force the last two words out.

            There’s a short silence. Then, “On our way,” from Ratchet and from Drift, “Would you prefer I accompany him?”

            Megatron’s feelings on the matter would be complicated if he could feel anything. He hates the idea of anyone else finding out, any extra pair of optics on him, but he hates the idea of being alone with an Autobot far more. “Yes.”

            Then he sits, tucked up small, with his back against the washracks door and a hand over the back of his neck, and he realizes that there is one reason he might have no memory of this, that there might be more holes in the back of his neck now, and the purge rushes over him before he can stop it.

            Mostly, he misses himself. But he’s shaking too hard to get up and clean it, no matter how his brain and spark scream that he has to do that, that even Drift cannot see him like this.

            They arrive before the shakes abate enough. Ratchet has to medically override the lock. Megatron wishes he could get up and let them in. He hates the weakness of being found huddled in his own mess on the floor and still, he’s shaking too hard to move.

            Ratchet sees him and curses. Drift takes a handful of cloths from him and approaches first. “I’ll take care of this,” he says, gesturing to the semi-processed fuel. “Tell me if I come too close.”

            Megatron snarls at him. “Don’t treat me like I’m fragile. Let’s get this over with. I can’t remember my attackers, or what they did.”

            Ratchet and Drift exchange a worried look. Drift kneels, cleaning up the purge with practiced motions, and gives Megatron what’s probably intended to be a reassuring, autobotish smile that comes out as a grimace. “Ratchet sometimes drafts me to help out when the medbay is shorthanded,” he says by way of explanation, as if Megatron doesn’t remember him jerking awake and purging after a nightmare. Megatron just looks at him, and Drift hands him a rag. “For what’s on you.”

            He cleans it off, and looks at Ratchet, who’s been hesitating. As if he’s the unessential member of their group, rather than the medic. “Scan me and have done with it.”

            Ratchet says nothing and does as ordered, then curses softly. “You have some severe strains in your arms,” he says. “One shoulder probably dislocated during the attack, from the inflammation. It’s back in, so at least we won’t have to do that. I’ll need a look at the back of your neck to see if there was mnemosurgery. The rest is much more invasive; I will need to touch you.”

            “If they managed to start a protoform,” Megatron says, and swallows hard, staring at Ratchet.

            “We’ll find a way to deal with it. To make sure you won’t have to incubate it,” says Ratchet. He meets Megtron’s eyes. “I know it’s something you’re worried about. You have every reason. But no one is going to stand for you being used for that equipment, do you understand me? No one. We’ll put guards on you if we must.”

            “If you could find anyone you’d care to trust,” says Megatron sourly.

            Ratchet snorts at him.

            The next hour is not good. It’s intrusive. It’s uncomfortable, even if he feels better afterward. Then Ratchet puts his modesty panels on again and Megatron’s utterly relieved, and then Ratchet wants to take him to the medbay.

            Megatron wants to put up a fight. But Drift, ever so quietly, says “They have hacked your door here. Evidently, locks are not sufficient.”

            Megatron goes quietly.

 

* * *

 

            “You go get what you need. I’ll stay with him,” Drift tells Ratchet when they arrive in the medbay. He glares at First Aid and Velocity when they start to hurry over. There’s no baring of teeth, as there would be among Decepticons. Drift has learned Autobot body language well. The simple look of displeasure stops both of the other medics in their tracks, glancing uncertainly at Ratchet.

            Ratchet sighs. What’s happened is clear enough. The smell is clear enough. Megatron is pretending it doesn’t affect him, walking through the ship, looking like this, the concern of the other medics, but he must be holding onto the threads of his control with all his strength, and Ratchet wants no one but himself and Drift around when those threads, inevitably, snap.

            Optimus does the same fragging thing, when it’s too much. Though Optimus has yet to snap. He has only ever collapsed.

            Megatron rounds on things like a cornered sparkeater, and he snaps violently, cruelly, and _Ratchet doesn’t know where that snapping point is._

Drift… might.

            Ratchet can hear them talking. There’s even a small laugh from Drift. They’re sharing war stories, he guesses. It makes him acutely uncomfortable. How many of those stories crossed his operating table?

            Once again, he wonders how Drift doesn’t hate Megatron. He wants to hate Megatron. He has hated Megatron, but right now, that response has been buried under revolted reaction, and all he can manage is a vague sense of uneasiness. He’s misread the situation with Drift and Megatron.

            Not that he’s particularly unaccustomed to misreading situations between Drift and other current or former Decepticons. Their cultures have grown too different.

            He glances over his shoulder as he gathers the materials for more permanent repairs. Megatron sits hunched. Not that he’s sat any other way, when off duty. Elbows on knees, helm bent forward. Is it projecting to think he looks a step away from splintering? Anyone in their right mind would be, if they’d been through what he has, but Ratchet has never thought Megatron to be in his right mind. Ever.

 

* * *

 

            There are only a handful of times Drift can remember Megatron being like this. Silent. Holding himself together by force of will.

            He’s always managed it. Drift has no doubt he can manage it again. Or he would have no doubt, if it weren’t for the fact Megatron has no memory of the attack.

            Any kind of tampering with his brain, Drift knows, is a thousand times worse for Megatron than any physical assault. Traumatic as what must have been a vicious gang rape was, it pales in comparison to his reaction to the trauma of losing control of that last sanctuary.

            So he talks. He draws Megatron into reminiscing about the good things about their lives, few as they were. The times before the cause became spoiled. Not only is it a distraction, but a reaffirming of Megatron’s mind, that his other memories are still reliable. He finally gets something like a chuckle out of Megatron at long last, some story  where Starscream was the butt of a joke, and then suddenly Megatron folds up around himself and his optics are haunted.

            “Whoever did this,” he says aloud, and his voice is halting and it scares Drift, he’s never heard this before, “knew. They will not keep it quiet. They will want me back on Cybertron. I will not be allowed to die.”

            After half a breath, Drift realizes that Megatron is thinking of Starscream’s triumph.

            “Optimus wouldn’t allow it,” he says, and wants to strike himself in the next moment because the way Megatron looks at him tells him without any doubt whatsoever who the protoform’s other parent was.


	6. Chapter 6

            He gets a message the next morning.

            _They drugged me. I’m sorry. I failed you. Survive. I am getting help._

            So that’s where Ravage was. He’d wondered. He'd rather Ravage stay here, with him, than go get help, but Ravage wasn't able to defend him the first time. He can't say the other mech's decision was unreasonable.

            Ratchet comes up to him afterward. He's stayed in one of the private rooms of the medical bay. It's safe. He can hear Ratchet working—the mech mutters curses constantly as he works. It's… comforting. Ratchet is an enemy, but his sins are those of gentleness, of spinelessness in standing up to his fellows, but not active cruelty or malice, and Megatron feels better knowing he's close by.

            "They didn't spark you," Ratchet says with a kindness Megatron didn't realize the medic was capable of. "I've studied your modifications, and I think I have a way to make sure no one will be able to spark you, unless you've planned to get sparked. Would you like me to install it?"

            "Yes," says Megatron, instantly. Ratchet equally gently explains what he can expect; a short, uncomfortable procedure. But it's better by far than risking an attack and another miscarriage, or Ratchet having to figure out how to end a sparking already in process.

            So Megatron bears it, as he bears Ultra Magnus's visit and uncomfortable interrogation. He's a prisoner; the failure of the Autobots to keep him safe is a major concern, Magnus says. He'll be investigating, and hopes he'll catch the responsible parties.

            He's very, very sorry.

            Megatron wants to tell him that he's alone in that. No other Autobot would regret this. The rest of the crew doesn't know. Even if they did, he doubts it would make any difference in their hatred. There are still slurs on his door. There are still mecha who shove past him, there are still the hateful looks.

            Does he want to return to Cybertron, says Magnus, who's noticed.

            No. What waits for him there is worse. Optimus and Starscream and worst of all Prowl. What Prowl will have done to him if he finds out terrifies Megatron.

            The depression sinks in as time goes on. They move him into new quarters, as if these will be any safer. There is no justice for a Decepticon in Autobot hands. There is nothing but endurance. He wonders which of the mecha around him joined in the attack. The fluids found on and in his frame were too mixed, too muddled and degraded by a chemical agent, to be identified. Megatron's familiar with that agent. Rape is no new weapon used against his people; early in the movement, Enforcers were more than happy to assault anyone in their custody with Decepticon leanings, and quickly developed ways to hide the evidence. Of course the Autobots have used this against him now.

            The longer he spends here the more he realizes how little has changed. He wonders that, if he had been a member of the Senate, of the nobility, of any class but the lowest, would they be treating him like this, a prisoner waiting for trial? And the answer is clear. Because, after all, Starscream is running Cybertron. If Megatron were what Starscream has always presented himself as, it would be Starscream here, and he would be living out his time in peace. He's sure of it.

            Time passes. He makes the mistake of accepting Mirage's offer to do a reading of his poetry at Visages. The bar clears instantly, with muttering and hatred and it ends up being him and Mirage, Mirage talking to him about his work with a knowledgeable interest that reeks to him of condescension. He makes his excuses and leaves. Is their resentful hatred due to the deaths on his helm, or to what he was supposed to be? He's not sure. His past self knew the answer.

            The next attack comes when he's awake. He steps into his new habsuite and someone is there, waiting. They speak a few phrases and Megatron can't move, standing still with his optics closed, waiting for them to do what they wish.

            "On your knees," they say, and his knees fold without his consent. He kneels. He can't open his optics. It is a moment before he realizes that must be of the same cause as his knees.

            "Very good," says the mech, and a hand lifts his chin. "Very attractive. Forward on your hands, too. Present your aft."

            Someone else in the room laughs as he complies. He jolts as a hand smooths over his interface panel.

            In front of him, there is a click. A spike pushes against his lips. He's told to open. Not to bite. He obeys and doesn’t know why, panic swirling through him.

            Ratchet made sure they can't spark him. It's hardly any comfort.

            "Open up," says the mech behind him and he opens. The mech makes a disappointed noise. "I think I like him resisting more," he says.

            The mech shoving a spike into his throat laughs. "Plenty of time for that. We can do what we did last time. Or maybe find out what he prefers and not do that."

            There's a harsh chuckle. A finger is exploring him, fluttering over his node. Rubbing the slit of his entrance. Megatron wants them away from him so much his plating crawls with it. He can feel it beginning to shiver, his hands trembling.

            The one in his mouth hasn't done much. It's only the head in Megatron's mouth right now, sliding back and forth with little motions. "Suck," he's told. He sucks, inexpertly, and still panicking, still unsure of why he can't resist.

            A finger prods into him, dry and painful. The mech makes a disappointed noise. The finger returns, coated with lubricant. Pushes deep into him, back and forth, making little circles at the apex. There's a thumb on his node now, rubbing. There's sensation, a tightening in his tank, a first twitch of pleasure. He feels like purging.

            The one in his mouth seizes his helm in an assured grip and pushes deep. Megatron gags on the spike, a smaller mech than him but too much too fast too deep. He gasps hard through his lateral vents. His valve is being spread open, firm and slow and maddening. It's not all artificial lubricant now.

            "You shouldn't be so nice to him," says the voice in front of him. "Put your spike in him and use him like the filthy shareware he is."

            "Can't you see he hates this?" the one behind him remarks, still lazily fingering him. The thumb on his node lightens in its touch, fluttering and teasing. Megatron feels the lips of his valve swelling and tightening with arousal, the node aching for more. He's very afraid he'll overload when that spike is pushed into him. He'd rather be bent over and hurt. Not this. Whatever this attacker thinks he's doing.

            The one in front of him must see how much he hates it. He groans and begins to roughly frag his mouth. He overloads hard and fast, pulling out to spatter across Megatron's face. "Frag. Yeah. You're right, that's hot. I'm after you."

            "Fair enough. I'm going to make him clean me up when I'm done."

            There's a laugh in front of him. "You won't be disappointed. He's good with it. Though Primus, did you hear what he thinks is poetry?" The mech's voice shades mocking. _"Steps away and gone/Lost/Seeking and alone."_

            He did _not_ read that. That's _private._ That's about Terminus.

            He wants to struggle, he feels his lips curl in a snarl.

            " _Your grave forever open/I sit and wait…_ How maudlin can you get? Open graves? You talking about your valve? I guess it's probably that stretched after what we did to you, but compare it to something happier, mech."

            The other one laughs. "I got something for your open grave right here," he says and seizes Megatron's hips, seating himself with a hard jerk. Megatron gasps. The mech presses into him, spreading him wide. To his horror, it feels good.

"Were you thinking of us when you wrote that?" he demands. "You liked it that much, huh? There's plenty more where that came from."

"Yeah, you don't have to be seeking and alone, there are plenty of spikes right here."

            It was for Terminus. It had been for Terminus. His first attempt in millions of years to write about abandoning him. Letting him down. He's staying still, shuddering, as his attacker's false gentleness evaporates and he frags Megatron like a drone, hard and fast. It should hurt, but he's wet and stretched for it and it feels good. He lets out a low whine.

            "You like that, huh?" the mech repeats and frags him harder. "Yeah. You don't gotta be alone."

Megatron puts his head down and pants.

            The mech spills in him with a satisfied noise and pulls out. Megatron shudders with relief, glad it's over, glad he's still holding onto himself, and then a much, much bigger spike spears into him and he jolts and cries out as it seems to hit every node in his valve at once.

            A similar pace, as he's brutally used, and it's hardly thirty seconds before he cries out and overloads for them, frame tense and shaking and something that's not quite pleasure shocking through him. The mech keeps using him as if he hasn't noticed, prolonging the overload into agony. Megatron tries to squirm to get away but he's pinned in position as if he were nailed there, and then someone grabs his chin and feeds him a spike, propping his mouth open and shoving inside. It tastes of transfluid and his own slick. And all the while the voices around him are quoting him, mocking his work. Twisting his grief into obscenity. Reinterpreting it and telling him how flattered they are that he missed them so much.

It sullies Terminus's memory.  The poem had been for him. A first attempt at voicing his feelings. It had been rough. But it had, for a time, helped. And now it won't. Now it's befouled by them.

            They roll him onto his back. Hands press his legs up and back, baring him to them. A finger sweeps through the mess in his valve, pushes deep and hooks inside him painfully, enough to make him cry out. The mecha laugh and then the big one is on top of him again, rubbing the tip of his spike against his valve teasingly, as if taunting Megatron with his inability to escape. Then he sinks in again, long and slow.

            "Let's see if he can take two," the mech above him says, and there's a finger pulling at the edge of his stretched valve.

            "No," says Megatron, and realizes with a start that they've let him keep his voice. There's a short, startled pause, and then laughter. The finger pushes deeper. The mech frags him, finger and spike together, and the spike swells painfully. Megatron trembles, unable to resist unable to even move. A second finger is added. He can feel a hot strain at the front edge of his valve. They'll tear him.

            The mech above him grunts, disappointed. "He's still too tight."

            "We can fix that." There's something very close to glee in the other voice. "Come on. Pound him through the deck."

            Fists close on his arms. Someone's still holding his legs open. The mech makes a vicious noise of satisfaction and withdraws, slams in so hard Megatron's plating screeches against the decking. The spike seems, impossibly, even bigger.

            "He makes such a good whore," someone says. The one on him grunts.

            "Primus, his valve's so tight." He's found a rhythm, long slow powerful thrusts that leave Megatron no way to escape, no ability to wiggle from under him. "So fragging wet. Bet you're going to overload, aren't you, shareware. You're not even in a berth."

            "Bet he'd be good bent over the berth. Think we could make him scream?"

            Megatron should be able to conjure up a disgusted sneer at that. He can't. Because with how his body's reacting the chances are very good that he would overload. He wonders if they gave him other commands in those first phrases. He wonders if they've somehow drugged him. He shakes his head instead, a helpless denial.

            "You know," says the mech over him, "you're small enough. I bet you could fit your whole hand in him. That thing you're using to keep him, it makes him extra receptive, right?"

            It sounds so obscene he doesn't quite believe it at first, but then the other mech makes a noise and it's considering and aroused. It sounds like he wants to do it, like the very idea turns him on and Megatron panics, knowing he can't stop the mech if he decides to follow through. Another helpless shake of his helm, more laughter.

            "I like that idea," says the one behind him, where his berth should be. "Then he should be able to take two spikes, easy."

            "Sounds like a plan." The spike in him is swelling, knotting. It hurts enough, even with the heat in his abdomen. He's sure their hands, their arms, are all sharp vicious edges. He's shaking now. He won't say anything, because it'll only encourage them, but he doesn't want this. Primus, he doesn't want this.

            The one crouched over him fills him, thick and filthy. "You'll want all of that," he whispers into Megatron's audial. "You want this to be easy for him."

            Megatron lies where he's left and shakes. When this one is done, he hears the other ise. Walk around him with slow deliberate steps and feels himself flinching away from him. Fingers probe his valve, slow and languid. As if the mech doing it has mistaken this for something consensual.

            The first three fingers are comparatively easy. He's stretched from the spike, filled with transfluid and slick with his own lubricants. He just knows this will get worse, and as the mech fingers him, he flinches with each stroke.

            "Too bad we can't record this," says the mech. "So many mecha would get off just on how much this scares you, without imagining this wet little valve. Without imagining you whimpering helplessly on their spikes. Look at you. You called yourself the Slagmaker. The Emperor of Destruction. All you need is a good spiking and you're right where you should be."

            He adds a fourth finger and it _hurts_. Megatron holds still, terrified that if he moves the pain will get worse. There's a condescending pat to his abdomen. "Relax," says the mech. "Relax and enjoy it, because it is going to hurt a lot more if you fight me. Just accept you're shareware, Megatron. It'll be a lot less painful. Who knows, you might get another overload out of it. You're hungry enough for those. I bet no one's touched you for ages. Why else would you come so hard for us?"

            He sounds like Trepan. Colors burst behind Megatron's offline optics, and he pants as a second crest of panic breaks over him, whiting out everything. The ache in his valve turns to a regular stabbing. He realizes the mech is moving again. He wonders how long before he tries to force more into him.

            At least he's not really aroused anymore.

            "Imagine fucking him with his own fusion cannon," says a voice. That mech must have been on Earth, to pick up that obscenity. Megatron files that away hand hopes he'll remember it. "Too bad he burned it."

            "Even he might have some trouble with it," says the one fingering him, and pain lances through him as he's stretched further. That must be the thumb. The unbearable pressure of the rest of the mech's folded hand. "Though you're just sucking me in here. Just like you were made for this. Primus, you love this. Are you going to come for me?"

            Megatron's response is a gasping whine as he's filled. His face is damp. It's just a stress response, he tells himself, trying not to feel ashamed at it. Trying not to feel ashamed that they can see they've gotten to him. That they can see he's hurt.

            The hand in him spreads a little and he cries out, a small sharp noise that he rapidly stifles. They hear it.

            They laugh.

            "How soon do we get to play again?" says the biggest one. "You got me all hard again."

            "You like his valve that much?" the one torturing him says.

            "I like that he's crying that much," says the third voice, vicious and satisfied. "It's good to see him get what's coming to him. The two of us should spike him. Maybe you make him clean out your valve."

            The big one groans. There are more footsteps around him. He's moved and shifted. The hand pops out of him and he gasps with relief. His hips are lifted. One spike presses at him, shoves in. A finger joins it, pulling at him, the tip of a second spike. It's more than he's taken before.

            "Wait a moment," says one of them, presumably to the big one. "I want to see his face."

            The two spikes jab into him, a disconnected rhythm that fills him too much too fast and he's sure he feels something tear, hears his own pained noise.

            "Was that…"

            "We're almost done. I'm sure Ratchet can fix it. Hey, Megatron, remember to thank your medic buddy for fixing you up so nice for us again. It's like fucking you for the first time all over again."

            Megatron's helm lolls. The pain fills his world. Then his head is steadied. He feels something heavy and reeking of lubricant over him and the big one's valve settles over his face. "Lick," the mech above him says.

            He licks. He's not done this before. He's never been intimate before. He doesn't want the lubricants of another mech in his mouth. He doesn't want this.

            "You suck slag at this," the mech on him says. Metalmesh parts around his face. "Here. Anterior node. Pay attention to that."

            He obeys and it isn't long before the mech over him groans and overloads with a wet wash of fluids. He rides Megatron's face through it, doesn’t move. "Keep going."

            The ones in his valve are getting close, frantic hard thrusts as if they're competing with one another. They both still and tie at the same time and Megatron lets out a muffled cry of pain because something else has torn, something near the front of his valve.

            "Oh, you're bleeding," says one with false concern, and then the one on his face roars his overload and climbs off. He goes down to join the other two and for a moment Megatron is terrified that he'll force his way in as well. But instead there are fingers on his node.

            "Let's make him come with you in him," says the big one and starts playing with him, tracing the stretch of his valve around the spikes in it, rubbing his node, gathering the fluids to ease the way.

            Even though there's no direct pleasure from what they're doing to him, he can feel the tensing in his tanks.

            When he overloads, it's a spasm, shaking without sensation, but his captors seem to enjoy it. They pull out a few moments later, and he can feel their spill slide out with him, running hot and wet over his aft.

            "I think we're done here," says one, sounding breathless.

            "Yeah, let's clean up."

            They leave him like that. He can hear them laughing in the washracks, and then two of them leave. The third pauses by him.

            "As much fun as it would be to leave you with those memories, watch you flinching, I don't intend to get caught just yet."

            A series of phrases. A click. Megatron knows nothing more.

 

* * *

 

            He wakes, slowly. This time, he doesn't bother to comm Ratchet. It won't do any good. He rises and staggers to the washracks, with hot urgent pain pulling between his legs. He pauses, staring at it.

            They've scribbled hatred on the walls. The inside stinks of old oil; someone vented their tanks before leaving. He stares at it. Maybe he should call Drift. Ratchet. To come help him. So he doesn't have to look at this while he cleans it.

            He doesn't. He doesn't want to talk to Magnus again. He rinses the floor. He activates the cleaning drones, and uses some of the paint thinner in the cabinets to deal with the obscenities on the wall. Then, with the washracks newly clean, the floor glittering in the wake of the little cleaning drones set to their most vicious setting and then sluiced with the most vicious cleaner that comes standard issue with a habsuite, he sits under the spray turned up as hot as it will go and tries to clean the transfluid out of his valve without having to touch it. Eventually he changes the setting on the sprayerhead and lowers the temperature of the solvent, stifling his noises of pain as it hits the tears. They're agony.

            He's patched up worse. He's patched up this exactly on some of his Decepticons, early in the war. He finds the medical kit and then the medical kit Ravage, full of distrust, brought and that he carried with him, equipped with far more, and he does his best to stitch himself up. He's glad the room is soundproof. He cries out, several times. He knows he hasn't done a particularly good job but it's better than nothing.

            He looks at the other contents of the medkit. Slips in a pain patch. Staggers to the berth. The room smells clean. The cleaning drones have moved out of the bathroom and removed any trace of what happened to him in there.

            The pain patch makes his valve hurt less. He takes a moment to consider, then climbs onto the berth. It's like…it's like nothing has happened in here. And he doesn't remember it. There's no point to remembering it. To thinking about it. He stares at the contents of the medical kit.

            He can pretend this never happened. They won't come for him again tonight, he's sure of that at the very least. He can recharge.

            He curls up.

            His mind races. Circles. Nothing much of note. Of use. The memory of the washracks and the pain of sewing himself up and the things earlier in the day, Rodimus laughing. The song Rodimus decided to sing on the bridge sticks in his processor. Two lines, looping and looping.

            He wants to recharge. He stares into the darkness. He shakes. He wants to take the sedatives in the medical kit, but he can't stand the idea of being helpless. He lies, paralyzed by indecision, and the hours of the night tick away.


	7. Chapter 7

            He's groggy the next day, but at least he's allowed midgrade again. He drinks it, feels the false buzz of energy. Hopefully enough to fool them into thinking he's all right.

            His valve feels hot and stiff and painful. He uses the next grade up of pain patch. There's no point to reporting this. They can't do anything for him. They won't.

            He's survived worse.

            He's survived worse. By evening, the feeling in his valve is an itching ache, hot and sore and angry. Maybe a little infected. He should put something on it to kill whatever it might be, but he keeps flinching every time he tries. After a time, he gives up. His self-repair has handled worse.

            He goes back to his quarters, enters cautiously. Uses the washracks, scrubbing himself nearly raw, then takes a datapad. The attackers can break into his quarters. He won't use his quarters, then.

            For tonight, he finds an abandoned storage room. Recharging here will take longer, without a proper recharge unit, but the door locks and no one will come looking for him here. He curls up.

            He doesn't take the sedatives. He tries to work on the poem for Terminus, but as he reads its lines a visceral disgust overcomes him and he throws the datapad on impulse across the room, finding himself hunched and panting and staring at its shards afterward.

            He manages recharge. Eventually. Not much of it.

            His valve feels worse the next day. He takes another pain patch. Someone's played with the atmospheric controls; it's alternately too hot and too cold. No one else is complaining, so he supposes it's a prank of Rodimus's. He doesn't complain.

            He uses the washracks again. He finds a new place to sleep. It's like the beginning of the war again, he thinks, and finds himself having vivid half-awake dreams of the bustle of that long ago base, his mind inventing whole conversations with Starscream. He smiles at them. Smiles at an imaginary Soundwave worrying over some injury of his. It's a physically uncomfortable night but so much better than the night before.

            Getting up the next morning hurts. His entire frame aches. His valve aches and itches and throbs enough to bring lubricant up in his optics. He doesn't want to look at it and manages to get to the bridge, not limping. Manages to get through his shift, helm swimming and aching. Everything is too cold today. He fights the feeling he needs to purge his tanks all day. It's familiar. He has his own overrides for it. From way back, in the mines, in the Pits. They hardly ever had good fuel.

            "Megatron. Megatron!"

            Drift is there. Megatron didn't notice him, which is bad. His tormenters could have snuck up on him.

            Drift has been talking, but his processor is slow and sleepy, and Megatron doesn't quite understand. Drift seems to have realized this, because he looks worried.

            "We need to get you to Ratchet."

            "I'm fine," Megatron says, more loudly than he means to.

            "No. You're not," says Drift.

            "I'm not going with you," says Megatron. It emerges as a croak. Drift should let him just go back to…back to where he slept last. His helm is spinning.

            "You're shivering," says Drift. "You're giving off heat like a smelter, your optics aren't focusing. You're very, very sick, you stupid fragger."

            "I'm fine," says Megatron. Maybe he should strike Deadlock for insubordination. This isn't his place. He tries to raise a hand.

            Deadlock catches it. His face isn't right. His optics are blue, and he's worryingly strong. He's holding Megatron's arm with no effort. Where are his guns? And he's changed his paint.

            "What the frag happened to you?" he says. Slurs. Why is his vocalizer not synthesizing words correctly?

            "We're going to the medbay," says Deadlock firmly.

            He doesn't want to go to the medbay. There's something very bad there. But he feels awful. He can't really resist the tug of Deadlock's hands while standing. He stumbles one step forward, two.

            He doesn't want to go to the medbay.

            He sits down and hisses with pain as it jars his sore aching array. "No," he tells Deadlock as firmly as he can.

            Deadlock turns away. Good. Megatron will wait here.

            After a while there are cool hands touching him. A sting of a needle and he growls, but can't bat the perpetrator away. His processor is hazy. It gets hazier. He's so tired.

            "Yeah, yeah, we got you," says a voice that's Autobot and doesn't belong near Deadlock. "We got you. You're safe."

            He doesn't like this feeling of his frame floating away from him. He tries to fight it. But he's sinking and his optics won't light, it's too exhausting.

            Too exhausting.

            "Fragging hell, he's heavy," is the last thing he hears.


	8. Chapter 8

"Well, he's less dead than he could be," says Ratchet after the first exam. "Good job finding him when you did, Drift."

            "He's been avoiding us," says Drift, arms folded. He frowns down at Megatron's unconscious form. He's getting pumped full of medications to stall the rust infection in his valve, and Ratchet has just finished cleaning and restitching the wounds.

            "Yep." Ratchet sighs. "He really must have wanted to. That repair job had to have hurt."

            Yeah. It would have. Drift closes his optics a moment. "They got to him again," he says. "Despite everything. He probably feels like Magnus's investigation didn't help him. He bared himself like that for nothing. He was vulnerable for nothing. So he's hiding it. If he asks for help from you, he knows you'll have to report it. He doesn't want to go through that again."

            "You a telepath now?" says Ratchet, too reflexive to have a sting to it. He's adjusting the dosage of something before he injects it into a line on one of Megatron's arms.

            "It's how any of us would think, Ratchet," says Drift. "Any Decepticon. Past or present. The legal system's never worked for us. Ever. You're lucky he cooperated the first time."

            He stares down at Megatron, his face still more grave and worn in stasis, the forbidding slash of his mouth grimmer than ever, and feels anger stir at the bottom of his spark. Partly for Megatron. No one deserves this. Partly at Megatron, because that familiar thing waking up within him is something he's tried to escape all his function. Deadlock isn’t at home anymore, slaggit. He can't be Deadlock anymore, the mech who had those feelings for an untouchable and wonderful leader. He's Drift, he's a better person, and he has Ratchet.

            Ratchet who is staring down at Megatron's unmoving form with an equally grim expression and an equal rage.

            For Megatron, of all mecha. Drift knows Ratchet's anger at the war, an anger he's often put on Megatron's shoulders. Before all this started, Drift was all too aware of the outright hate Ratchet indulged for the other mech. But now, Ratchet is once again taking the side of the most wronged.

            Yeah. There's a reason he loves both of them. But Ratchet is his and he Ratchet's and they make each other better people. He goes to Ratchet's side and takes his newly-cleaned hand. "Thank you."

            "For what?" snaps Ratchet. "I'm doing my job."

            Drift doesn't have much to say. After a while he says, quietly, "I know you have lots of reasons to hate him."

            "Yeah and I can put a name to all of them," says Ratchet.

            "Exactly," says Drift. He keeps his voice quiet. "But you're good with him."

            "It's my job," says Ratchet gruffly.

            Drift stares at him for a moment, wondering how someone otherwise so brilliant can be so obtuse when it comes to his own feelings, his own spark. Like that's anything new, with Ratchet. There's a lot more emotion in this than Ratchet just doing his job. There's anger and concern and Drift knows, _knows_ , he saw admiration for a moment there when Ratchet realized what Megatron was trying to do, brief and quickly repressed.

            Megatron's like a black hole. No. A very massive star. He distorts the gravity of emotion around himself, but not so that no light escapes; rather, he's always cast a light, brilliant and terrible. That's what made the worst parts of him so evil. His ability to lift others to new levels they never would have dreamed of, capabilities far beyond their imaginations. Even if those capabilities were for murder and torture and pain. Megatron has never, and will never, see himself as a villain. He has never, and will never, put his own selfish concerns ahead of everyone else. Of all the things he is, he is no coward.

            That is what makes him so dreadful. The inexorable gravity of the fanatic, a warrior-priest of legend, with the pull of his personality dragging their whole species behind it into war. These virtues he commuted to vices; they magnified the evil he was capable of rather than diminishing it, and by his example they magnified the evils of his followers as well.

            For a moment Drift sees him through a purely Autobot lens, sees himself and Ratchet pulled along in the vanguard with him and is, for a moment, afraid of what this might lead to. Is he a fool not to be on his guard again? Is he a fool to assume that Megatron, even so wounded, is not on the offense? Is not moving them all to a new disaster, certain in the righteousness of his cause?

            He stares at the still figure on the medical slab, deeply in stasis, heavily drugged, the metalmesh blanket over his pelvic span, and thinks of the hurt wounded vulnerability in Megatron's optics, the way he curled over on himself. He never did that even with half his abdomen blown away, he never showed pain like that even in the early days of the war when they were all new at death and excited and scared all together.

            Drift looks at the still figure on the medical slab, and is ashamed at how Drift the Autobot wants to view Megatron's pain, at his fear of being once more pulled along in the other mech's wake. And at the same time, he fears where this may lead all of them. And he is ashamed of that fear, too.

            "We have to tell Magnus," Ratchet is saying. "He's still technically a prisoner, and this needs to be reported."

            "He'll deny it," Drift says, utterly certain. "And next time, he'll do an even better job of avoiding us. I only found him when I did because he was delirious; I have no idea where he was recharging even now. You don't survive being a revolutionary like he did by being bad at hiding."

            "We still have to tell Magnus," says Ratchet, voice hollow. "This has to be stopped."

            "Agreed," says Drift. "But bringing Magnus in and restarting that investigation will just mean Megatron won't cooperate with his own protection. It'll make things worse."

            "Look, how about I call Magnus, and all three of us talk about it?" says Ratchet, pinching the bridge of his nose—exactly like Megatron, Drift realizes, and flushes hot at the realization.

            "Magnus will insist on an investigation," says Drift. "You know it. Megatron won't want that."

            "He's a prisoner!" says Ratchet. "I'm obligated to report it! I can't just…what, pretend this isn't happening!"

            Just like that, Drift knows he's lost. He subsides and watches Ratchet call Magnus. Magnus arrives and receives Ratchet's report with a stony expression and demands a statement from Drift as well. Drift gives it, as best he can, and then his warning—Megatron may not cooperate.

            Magnus sighs. "Whether or not he cooperates, it is clear we aren't successful in keeping him reasonably safe here. We'll have to send him back to Cybertron."

            "No!" says Drift, realizes his voice is too sharp, too loud for the situation, tries to regain some semblance of calm. "No. He will not be safe there."

            "How do you know that?" says Ratchet, and it's not skeptical. It's a genuine question.

            "You know about the protoform he miscarried," says Drift. Magnus nods; it was relevant to the investigation for him to have access to the medical files. "The other parent was almost certainly someone on Cybertron. From Megatron's reactions, I think it was…conceived before we left, but after he surrendered. And I am suspicious it's someone in power." He's suspicious it was Optimus, but he's not so damn stupid to say that out loud around a bunch of Autobots. They worship the mech. For good reason, Drift would usually believe, but he talked to Rodimus about his conversation with Optimus and is far too aware that Optimus has a new, ugly side to him. One demonstrated by putting Megatron aboard the Lost Light. By the Fools Energon.

            Magnus looks at Ratchet. Ratchet says, "It fits with my suspicions," and Drift all but sags with relief. Magnus nods. "I take your concerns seriously."

            So when Megatron wakes up again, optics slowly fading online, Drift is able to say, first thing for him to hear, "They won't send you back to Cybertron. It's okay."

            He never wants to see Megatron look at him with gratitude like that ever, ever again.


End file.
